SCOTUS Smackdown on WA Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously smacked down the Washington State Supreme Court.

I've mentioned this issue before: basically, the people passed an initiative requiring the teacher's union to get permission from non-members who pay mandatory dues before using that money for political purposes. The union sued, and the state court, incredibly, said that the state law was an unconstitutional restriction on the union.

So, this went to the Supreme Court, which said to the state court, in effect, "what are you smoking?" Scalia called the claim of unconstitutionality "counterintuitive."

Of course, the union knew this was coming. They knew they were beat. So they lobbied the Democratic-controlled legislature to repeal the initiative. So they did that, and put an "emergency" tag on it (which means they are lying to the public by saying it is actually an emergency, in order to make sure the public has less opportunity to overturn the bill). And then the Democratic governor signed it, including the emergency provision.

The Democrats in this state are saying, yeah, well, screw the people. Screw their initiative, screw their right to a new initiative, and screw the rights of teachers to not give their own money to get Democrats elected, since that is the clear effect and intent here: the Democrats force teachers to pay dues, the Democrats allow the union to use those dues for political purposes without permission, and the union uses those dues to get Democrats elected.

Yay democracy. slashdot.org

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<pudge/*> (pronounced "PudgeGlob") is thousands of posts over many years by Pudge.

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

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